Self-destructiveness. He’s spent the last few decades with various physical and mental problems originating from his boxing. We are beginning to realize how damaging American football is to players, but obviously the most self-destructive sport is boxing. Yes, it got him his fame, but he probably could have excelled at something else which wouldn’t have had such terrible consequences on his health.

The elderly poet was profiled in Sports Illustrated and featured on the cover of Esquire, with Jimmy Durante, Joe Louis, and others. George Plimpton picked her up in a limousine at her home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and escorted her to a game at Yankee Stadium. Plimpton also introduced her to Norman Mailer, whom she adored, and to Muhammad Ali, at that time Cassius Clay. It is hard to imagine any other high modernist—Ezra Pound, say, or Wallace Stevens—writing the liner notes for Ali’s spoken-word record, “I Am the Greatest,” as Moore did.